The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | While Uganda has previously received global applause for quickly and swiftly handling lethal outbreaks, there are fears that the current outbreak of Sudan virus disease first announced in late January might plunge the country into a major crisis.
Speaking during a meeting on Monday evening, Dr Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health expressed concern that health workers are no longer taking proper history which is affecting how easily they detect cases when they show up in health facilities.
She said the recent confirmed Ebola death exposes a lot of gaps in detection, which is why they only got to know they were handling an Ebola case more than a week after the patient reported to hospital.
Before his demise at the Acute Care Unit of Mulago National Referral Hospital last week, a four-and-a-half-year-old male, a now second confirmed Ebola death had been to four health facilities including a big Private Not for Profit hospital in Kampala.
According to Dr Eric Wabudeya, a Senior Consultant Pediatrician at the Unit says the child arrived at Mulago on February 23rd while unconscious having first sought care in a private health facility in Kibuli on February 15th.
With a very high fever, Wabudeya says the parents thought the child had contracted malaria and indeed health workers treated him for complicated malaria even as all blood tests for malaria were negative.
Like other Ebola cases, this child presented with symptoms including fever, restlessness, seizures, vomiting and diarrhea. Strangely, he had also lost a mother and newborn sibling just eight days before officials discharged all the confirmed cases of Ebola who had been isolated for treatment at Mulago National and Mbale Regional Referral hospitals.
Dr wabudeya acknowledges there was dangerously a lapse that health workers, even at Mulago did not suspect Ebola despite seeing traces of dry blood on the patient’s lips. It was only after they had taken off samples and handed over the body to the family that they learnt, they had been handling an Ebola case, he says.
According to Atwine, this only points to danger of transmission spilling out of control. By Monday, 188 contacts had so far been identified but it’s not yet clear how many of these have turned positive. Ministry of Health maintains the total confirmed case count at ten and officials have been hesitant to reveal any latest information to the media.
But, Atwine reveals that they are facing a major challenge of some health workers still being in denial that there is an ongoing outbreak.
This is the sixth outbreak of the Sudan strain of Ebola in Uganda; the most recent outbreak was reported in September 2022 with 164 cases and 55 deaths.
However, it’s not yet clear where this current outbreak came from. Col Dr Henry Kyobe, the Incident Manager of such outbreak in the Health Ministry says they are still trying to establish the origins but notes that they have formed two clusters whereby some cases got infected at family level and majority at health facility level.
Luweero, Ntoroko and Kabarole have since been added to the list of high risk districts after Mbale, Wakiso, Kampala, and Mukono where the health worker who succumbed to Ebola first or the index case had been. For now, health workers are encouraged to screen all cases that arrive at health facilities for Ebola if they are to quickly identify positive cases.
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